Strangers and Shadows (45 page)

“Pull over… Let’s see what he wants,” Celia said.

Jack pulled over and put the van in park, but he kept the engine running.

The patrol car pulled up behind him, and the driver got out, followed by his partner.  His partner stayed at the rear of the van with his hand on his sidearm while the driver approached Jack cautiously, with his weapon drawn and pointed at the Jack in the front seat.  

Jack watched the officer in his side mirror, as he glanced nervously into the van, checking for god only knew what.  The man seemed a little too spooked for a routine traffic stop.

The officer reached Jack’s window and told him to roll it down.  “Alright, now let me see your hands!”

“Good afternoon, Officer.  What seems to be the problem?” Jack asked as politely as he could manage.

The officer’s facial expression changed from a nervous tension to a completely blank slate.  He then smiled and re-holstered his weapon.  “We’ve had reports that you’ve been doing one heck of a job driving this here van…”

Jack furrowed his brow in confusion.

The officer stuck out his hand.  “I just wanted to shake the hand of the man who was handling this van!”

Jack laughed nervously and shook the man’s hand.

The officer then turned and walked back to his car.  “Come on, partner.  This ain’t the van we’re looking for…”

Jack turned and accused Celia, “What the hell did you do to that poor guy?”

Celia laughed the accusation off.  “Just poked around in his head a little… took some info out, put some info in… You know, standard procedure.”

Jack shook his head in amazement as he put the van in drive and pulled out into traffic once more.

“Jack, we need to get off this island.  Those officers were looking for a van that exactly matched our description.  I’m not sure how, and I don’t even know if I want to know, but Dorian is using the local law enforcement to help in his search for us.”

“Shit,” Jack said.  “I’ll head for the nearest tunnel and try to get us to some open roads, not surrounded by water.”

“Jack, hurry!” Celia gasped.

“What is it?”  Jack knew something was wrong.

“They’re jumping in EMF generators…” Celia’s face had turned a shade paler.  

“Of course they are,” Jack said.  “Why should anything be easy?”

“Whatever your plan was for getting us out of the city, we need to do it fast.”

“We’re almost out of midtown, if you can do your Moses trick again, we should be through the Lincoln Tunnel within a few minutes.”

Celia nodded.  The lane in front of the van began to clear, and Jack drove full speed ahead.

“Yes, sergeant, go ahead.”  Hacking this verse’s communications and linking it to their own technology was almost too easy.  And with the help of an old cover ID, Dorian had subverted the city’s police force for his own use.  The cover ID was for some big shot in Homeland Security, and the back story was insanely easy to sell—he was chasing domestic terrorists.

“Have you located them?” Dorian asked the sergeant.

“Yes, sir.  It was just like you said, a vehicle with no traffic in front of it.  In this city it stuck out like a sore thumb.  Anyways, I got a squad car pulling them over as we speak.  They should be in custody shortly.”

“Very good.  Send me the feed from the officer’s patrol car.”

There was a pause on the line as the sergeant gave the order.  “There, you should be able to see what we’re seeing now.”

Dorian glanced at the feed on his data pad.  He watched as the officer got out of the car, drew his sidearm and approached the van.  Just off to the side of the frame he could see the officer’s partner hanging back, covering the passenger side of the vehicle.

The officer spoke with the driver for a few moments and then visibly relaxed as he holstered his gun and walked back to his car.

“What the fuck was that?” Dorian heard the sergeant yell over the comm.  “You get a hold of those two fuck wads and put them on the line with me!”

Dorian interrupted.  “Sergeant, that won’t be necessary… I expected as much from these three.  They have a way of confusing people’s minds.  It was a DOD project that was stolen by these terrorists.  We’ve learned that they have plans to sell it to the highest bidder on the black market.  So, you see, it’s not your officers fault.  Just follow them from a distance and be ready to assist me when I call.  And whatever you do, don’t lose that van.”

The sergeant stuttered for a moment before replying, “Aye, aye, sir.”

Dorian ended the call and turned to his second in command.  “Have them start jumping in a few EMF devices close to their location.”

“But sir, it takes the generators several minutes to spin up and broadcast their field to its maximum circumference,” the second in command replied.  “They’ll be out of range before the field is within reach.”

“I’m fully aware of that.  Just do it anyway.  Celia is powerful enough that she’ll detect the voids that the EMFs produce, and that will suit my needs just fine.”

The second in command nodded.  “I understand, sir.”

“It will light a fire under their feet that will drive them right into the trap I have waiting for them,” Dorian explained.  “When you’ve finished ordering the devices in, contact the good sergeant and tell him to be ready to shut down the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel when I say so.”

Several minutes later, Dorian watched the vid feed from the helicopter as the van entered the tunnel.  He called the sergeant.  “Shut it down.”

“What about the other side?” the sergeant asked.

“Leave that to me.  My team will apprehend the terrorists personally.  You just make sure no one comes out of that tunnel on your end.”

Jimbo Stevens saw the woman at the end of the pier next to the dog park, and instantly fell in love.  Normally, a shy young man, Jimbo boldly pulled his boat alongside the pier when she waved him over.

“Wanna give me and my friends a ride?” the woman asked.  

His chest swelled at the thought of having the woman aboard.

As an officer of the Port Authority, Jimbo knew that he should decline.  Official vehicles were for official use only.  He should smile, ask her out on a date, and then point her to the nearest civilian boating establishment.  Instead, he heard himself say, “I’d love to.”

His eyebrows immediately furrowed after he said it, matching the confusion he felt inside.  Had he just told her he would take her and her friends for a ride?  

As the woman and her two friends climbed onto the boat, Jimbo tried to explain that he’d made a mistake—that a ride would not be possible, but it was as if he’d lost all control over his mouth.  She was so beautiful.  It was as if she was glowing, and her smell—she smelled like spring flowers after the rain.  She made every other woman that he’d ever met seem like a little girl playing in the mud.  He would do anything for this woman—anything to keep her from going away.

Jimbo took his hat off and shyly combed his thinning hair back with his bare hand.  “Hi, there, I’m Jimbo.”  He stuck his hand out and the woman shook it lightly, delicately.

“I’m Celia,” the woman replied.  “And these are my friends, Jack and Ava.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Jimbo said.  The man and woman nodded back but said nothing.

Jimbo started when the most beautiful woman in the world spoke to him.  He’d been staring at her, and he wasn’t entirely sure for how long.  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Jimbo asked.

She smiled and replied, “I asked if you could take us on that ride now?”

Jimbo blushed.  “Of course.  Where was it that you guys wanted to go?”

The woman bit her bottom lip seductively.  “Could you take us up the river a way, to New Jersey?”

“I dunno,” Jimbo shook his head.  “I’m supposed to be on the look out for some kinda terrorist threat or something.  I can’t really remember, now that I think about it.”

Celia stepped closer and touched his arm.  “I bet you could do both.”

“Yeah, I suppose I could,” Jimbo said.  He pulled the boat away from the pier and out into the open water of the Hudson.  It was a lovely day to be out on the water.  The sun was shining, but it wasn’t unbearably hot yet, like it would be in a few months.

“How long do you think we’ll have until they figure out we’re not in the tunnel?” Jack asked Celia.

“Not long, I would imagine.  Speaking of which… Jimbo?” Celia turned to him.  “Do you know how to turn off the transponder on this old thing?”

“Well now, why would you wanna go and do a thing like that?” Jimbo asked.

The woman stared at him and said nothing.  He’d made her mad for sure.  She would go away now and leave him and he would never see her again.  “Yes, yes… I can, I can turn it off,” Jimbo babbled.

The woman smiled at him and everything was right in the world once more.  “Excellent, Jimbo.  Would you do that now for me?”

Jimbo popped open the panel below the steering column and disconnected the power cable from the device that would transmit their location.  “There we go… All done.”

“Wonderful, Jimbo.  You did an excellent job,” Celia said.

Jimbo beamed.  It felt so good to make her happy.

“Now, how fast does this thing go?” she asked.

Jimbo cranked open the throttle and sped upstream.  It was a wonderful day to be out on the water.

No one had come out of the Lincoln Tunnel’s three tubes since the van drove into the center tube several minutes ago.  As Dorian and his team entered the tunnel they were greeted by the sound of honking horns and angry drivers. 
What I wouldn’t give for an EM pulse right now,
Dorian thought.  Instead he had his nanites isolate the annoying frequencies and turn the volume down.  He could still hear them, but they were nowhere near as invasive.

The honking stopped as drivers saw Dorian’s team in full riot gear walk past with weapons raised at the ready.  They reached the van and took cover behind nearby vehicles.  The air was thick with exhaust.

“Sir,” one of Dorian’s agents reported, “there aren’t any life signs coming from the van.”

“What do you mean?  That’s not possible.”

The agent shook his head.  “I’m afraid it is, sir.”

“You’re wrong, agent.  We saw them enter the tunnel.  If they would have jumped out we’d know.  Check the bitch’s tracker.”

The agent checked.  “It shows her nearby and on the move.”

“Give me eyes inside that van,” Dorian ordered.

Four men moved in and took the van.  They opened the doors and found it empty.

Dorian cursed and kicked the door of the nearest car several times.  The driver stared at him with terrified eyes and a confused look on her face.

They had eluded his snare for the second time.  He couldn’t just jump in endless EMF generators—he had to know where Celia would be in order to use them effectively, and he wasn’t even sure if she knew where she was heading.  Besides, most of the generators were already in use in the Sixth.  If only she would slip up somehow…

“Alright, let’s head back up topside,” Dorian said.  It was going to be a long goddamn day.

Persistent Resistance

Several weeks had passed since Desmond had last seen his daughter.  He wondered how she was doing and what kind of trouble she was getting into.  He thought she would have liked what he was doing with the resistance.

Thanks to Kid, the gateway had been shut down, and with it, the endless supply of large scale EMF generators had ceased to flood into the Sixth.  The supply of smaller, normal EMF generators had not stopped however.  From behind their protective barrier, the Seventh’s army kept jumping more and more EMF devices on world.  Desmond, with the help of Drum, and a handful of others, had managed to organize small guerrilla strike forces.

They had succeeded in stopping the spread of the Seventh’s EM field, but all of Cairo and much of the surrounding land was already encompassed.  Any attempt to spread the EM field was stopped by the strike forces.

It was no way to win the war, Desmond knew, but he wanted to give Wizard some time before resorting to more drastic measures.  He also needed time to train his agents for such a mission.  In order to take back their world for good, they would need to destroy the large EMF generators that were making this standoff possible.  Their range far exceeded the range of the normal EMF generators.  They extended for several miles.  That was a long way for a Shadow to infiltrate with no telekinetic abilities.  They would have to be trained on unfamiliar weapons and transports if such a mission were to succeed.

He stood on a ridge, looking out over the vast sandy plains toward Cairo.  Somewhere out there, miles away, the invisible EM field started.  There was a brief flash of light beside him and he felt her presence before he heard her voice.

“Desmond, they are attempting to extend the field again!” Riley reported.  She was the leader of one of the guerrilla cells.  A young woman of seventy-two, she reminded Desmond a little of Celia at that age.

“Where?” 

“Everywhere!”  There was a note of desperation in her voice, and Desmond had no need to guess as to why.  Previously, the Seventh had never tried to extend the field in more than one direction at a time.  The new tactic worried him.  What could they be up to?  Where they just merely trying to stretch the resistance’s lines thin, or had they found a weakness to exploit?

“Get word to Drum and Sandoval.  Make sure they are aware of the situation and tell them to proceed as usual when dealing with an expansion attempt.  I will lead the cells from the south while you take the north, and Drum and Sandoval, the east and west.  Be sure they have their comm operators alert and ready should our abilities somehow be compromised.”

Riley nodded and then jumped out to deliver Desmond’s orders.

Desmond walked in the command tent which also served as the mess hall and local gathering spot.  He informed those gathered there of the attack.  “Sudi, Leopold, Murdoc, and Placido you fly the byrds.  Choose the rest of your teams and be sure that your unit has a comm.  We don’t know what to expect out there.”